Virginia Army National Guard

The Virginia Army National Guard performed "in a highly professional manner" during Sept. 1-5 disturbances in Virginia Beach, Va., according to findings of an independent review announced by the National Guard Bureau in Washington. Lt. Gen. Herbert R. Temple Jr., bureau chief, said reviewers found no evidence that delays in deployment of the Guard on Sept. 3 contributed to looting and vandalism. Temple said no instance of physical abuse by a Guard member had been verified.

The Virginia Army National Guard performed "in a highly professional manner" during Sept. 1-5 disturbances in Virginia Beach, Va., according to findings of an independent review announced by the National Guard Bureau in Washington. Lt. Gen. Herbert R. Temple Jr., bureau chief, said reviewers found no evidence that delays in deployment of the Guard on Sept. 3 contributed to looting and vandalism. Temple said no instance of physical abuse by a Guard member had been verified.

The mission to staff the helicopter that will bring Jessica Lynch home today had no shortage of volunteers. The duty went to four members of the West Virginia Army National Guard's aviation support unit in Parkersburg, each proud to help in the return of the Mountain State's most famous soldier to her hometown of Elizabeth. On Monday, Lynch was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Prisoner of War medals at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Two colonels, a lieutenant colonel and two command sergeants major were among the 12 U.S. soldiers killed last weekend in the crash of a Black Hawk helicopter northeast of Baghdad, the Pentagon said. It appeared to be the largest number of key officers and command sergeants killed in a single incident since the Iraq war started nearly four years ago. The helicopter went down Saturday in Diyala province, one of the volatile regions in the Iraq conflict.

After enduring threats from white shipmates and efforts by Navy officers to sabotage his final exam in diving school, Carl Maxie Brashear emerged as the Navy's first African American deep-sea diver. So he had no intention of giving up that hard-won position in 1966, after injuries suffered while recovering a bomb from the ocean left him an amputee.

When Master Sgt. Gary L. Beaver was recruited for the war on terrorism, he left his job as a police officer in a Virginia suburb and eagerly answered the call to capture Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. But what he and his fellow soldiers in the Virginia Army National Guard unit encountered, he said, was a yearlong obstacle course of military inequities and slights that left even the most patriotic among them wondering whether they would serve again.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - For the third straight day, with more ahead, about 300,000 residents of West Virginia were unable to use their tap water because a chemical solvent leaked into the area's water supply Thursday. As authorities on Saturday worked to flush pipes that supply water to Charleston and nine counties in the state, officials said it will take several days to properly test the water to ensure it is safe to drink. “I would think we're talking days," West Virginia American Water Company president Jeff McIntyre told reporters Saturday afternoon.

The Defense Department last week identified the following American military personnel killed in Iraq or who died in Bahrain or at sea while serving in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. * Brian D. Allgood, 46, of Oklahoma; colonel, Army. Allgood was among 12 troops killed Jan. 20 when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed northeast of Baghdad. The cause was under investigation, but Pentagon officials said the helicopter might have been hit by a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile.